Syndication

Cheri Maples is both a lawyer and an ordained dharma teacher. She teaches mindfulness to criminal justice professionals, and others in high-stress, people-helping professions, through her organization Center for Mindfulness & Justice.

If it had been a different day, just a few weeks earlier, Capt. Cheri Maples would have arrested the man without a second thought. He'd already threatened her and was refusing to hand his daughter over to his ex-wife after a weekend visitation.

But on this day, shortly after returning home from a retreat with a Vietnamese monk, the Madison, Wis., policewoman tried another tack.

"This guy was huge, a lot bigger than I am," she recalls. "I just talked to him about what was going on, and he started crying and sobbing and it was clear that he was in a tremendous amount of pain. And given that there hadn't been any physical violence, I decided not to arrest him."

Three days later, Captain Maples ran into him again. "He recognized me, and picked me up and gave me this big bear hug and said, 'You saved my life that night.' "

Maples credits the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh for her approach that night 12 years ago. She remained so impressed she organized a week-long retreat with the Vietnamese monk this summer for officers and others working in the criminal justice system. Mr. Hanh's message: the futility of meeting anger with anger.

Can holistic law work in criminal as well as civil cases?...In every criminal case that I handle, I sit with my clients for two to three hours just talking about their life history. It’s amazing what learning and awakening they go through understanding how they got there. That this just didn’t happen, that this is a pattern throughout their lives. They’ve been able to see for the first time that their actions had a negative affect on other people. Instead of striking inward, which they’ve been doing and really beating themselves up from the inside, they strike out, which harms other people. But their focus is so selfish, they don’t recognize their impact on anybody else.

I’ve had conversations with thieves and aggravated assaults and people who have threatened violence and stalkers, and they don’t see their victims as human beings. And people who steal don’t see it as stealing from another person. The victims, on the other hand, take it personally. They have the symbiotic story on the other side.

One of the great things happening in criminal law now is that we are looking at the reparative -- the repairing -- rather than punishing. If the victim and offender meet and talk, they can learn that this wasn't done to anyone personally. They both heal as a result. The offender learns other ways to express the explosion that happens. It changes their lives forever, too. They understand that nothing happens in any one person’s life that doesn’t affect the whole of society. If that’s too metaphysical or spiritual, look at it as a community or family. There isn’t anything that you can say, do, or even think that doesn’t affect everyone around you.

The communitarian conception of bargaining now popular with legal academics presupposes a world in which people are always at their best. Clients and lawyers share information about themselves and their situations candidly and honestly, construct agreements from the perspective of their common interests and resolve differences according to objectively derived and jointly agreed upon substantive standards. They “connect” as persons and in the process convert what in lesser hands might be a form of stylized combat into a kind of joint venture, and sometimes even a lasting friendship. This, in turn, takes the hard edge off their disputing and makes it less antagonistic, less competitive, less deceptive, less manipulative and less mean-spirited than it otherwise might be. One might even say that communitarian bargainers create a kind of dispute-settlement Nirvana (or Eden), where self-interest is not naked, force is not brutish, entitlement claims are not legalistic and everyone acts in the spirit and to the limits, of their social potential. This is a wonderfully inspiring story, full of nobility and grandeur and it would be a source of great comfort in an unfriendly and fractious world if it was true. But sadly, the assumptions communitarian bargaining theory makes about legal disputing are too idealized to serve as a guide to real-life bargaining most of the time and its foundational dogma, that bargaining distributions are natural, self-evident and complementary, is based on a vision of humans before the fall. The communitarian view is more mythic than data-based, appealing mostly to those who have little direct experience with bargaining practice itself, those who have never entered the fray so to speak, or what’s worse, have entered it, done badly and now want to change the ground rules so they will do better in the future.

I illustrate the objections to the communitarian conception of bargaining by analyzing the behavior of a set of

The University of Miami School of Law announces the establishment of the Therapeutic Jurisprudence Center. The center will be directed by Professor Bruce J. Winick, who, along with Professor David B. Wexler of the University of Puerto Rico School of Law, founded the field of therapeutic jurisprudence in the late 1980s. The inauguration of the Therapeutic Jurisprudence Center will be celebrated on Thursday evening, September 24th at the Lowe Art Museum on campus. Florida Supreme Court Justice Barbara J. Pariente will serve as keynote speaker for the invitation-only event. President Donna E. Shalala will give welcoming remarks.

“The center will play a significant role in identifying the practical insights of law and psychology,” said Dean Patricia D. White. “Professor Winick’s work in this arena has been

Therapeutic Jurisprudence (TJ) is the study of the role of the law as a therapeutic agent. It places much needed attention on the law's impact on emotional life and psychological well-being. As we better understand that the law is a social force that often produces therapeutic or anti-therapeutic consequences, the study of TJ provides an exciting opportunity for our students and legal professionals to gain valuable insights into how the law actually affects people. Recognition that significant human stressors are attached to legal processes is fundamental to our program. Our program explores ways consistent with the principles of justice that the knowledge associated with TJ can help minimize emotional harm and meet the needs of individuals, families and the community.

THE debate raging about the role of courts and barristers and the size of counsels' fees is but one aspect of the much broader problem of the role of our justice system and its reform. It is a debate that asks us as a community to think deeply about how we can best deal with conflicts and the problems underlying them.. . .

Other approaches to justice have emerged recently that influence the way the justice system functions, including restorative justice, therapeutic jurisprudence,

The 2008 Annual Conference, May 15-18, 2008, will be held at The Retreat Center in Plymouth, Michigan. The theme for the conference is Authentic Lawyering: Practicing from the Heart.

Plans include Ward Powers as a keynote speaker. A lawyer, he created and produced One the Movie, a film about the concept of oneness. Lorraine Weber, who is head of the Detroit Metro Bar Association--and a shaman--will open the conference.. . .IAHL Mission Statement:

The International Alliance of Holistic Lawyers' mission is to transform the practice of law, through education and support of holistic practice.

Our Vision:

The IAHL envisions a world where lawyers are valued as healers, helpers, counselors, problem-solvers, and peacemakers. Conflicts are seen as opportunities for growth. Lawyers model balanced lives and are respected for their contributions to the greater good.